The Anthropocentric Paradigm and the Posibility of Animal Ethics

Ethics & the Environment, Volume 15, Number 1, pp. 27-50

By Elisa Aaltola

Animal
ethics has tended to follow an analytical approach and has focused much
attention on moral reason and theory. Recently, some have argued this
to be a fundamental problem. The 'paradigmatic account' claims that
instead of reason and theory, ethics ought to emphasize common
paradigms and meanings. Since these paradigms and meanings tend to be
anthropocentric, the pro-animal arguments presented within animal
ethics ought to be viewed critically. The paper explores two variants
of this account: anthropocentric casuistry and the Wittgensteinian
approach. It is maintained that, although the importance of paradigms
and meanings ought to be recognized, both of these approaches face
severe difficulties that make them, without further development, an
unfruitful basis for ethics concerning non-human animals.